Liberals launch campaign

Tony Abbott will have no quibble with a finding in part two of Labor's post-election review, the unreleased section that deals with the election campaign.

In the words of a member of the ALP national executive who read the review on Friday, a key reason Labor fell over the line on August 21 last year was because the NSW division of the Liberal Party ''fluffed it''.

The review does not delve into the mechanics of the NSW division and whether state or federal Liberals were to blame. It simply makes the observation that late or poor preselections by the Liberals in key vulnerable seats and misguided resourcing ensured the ALP did far better than expected in NSW and, as a result, clung to office.

For all the bile directed towards the NSW kingmakers, Mark Arbib and Karl Bitar, Sussex Street concentrated on sandbagging these seats and, consequently, Labor lost only two held seats in NSW, Bennelong and Macquarie. It won the Liberal-held Greenway and held onto crucial seats such as Lindsay, Robertson, Dobell, Eden-Monaro and Banks.

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Due in part to the toxicity of the respective state governments, Labor was polling as poorly overall in Queensland as it was in NSW. Had the wipeout Labor experienced in Queensland been repeated in NSW, Abbott would be prime minister. No doubt.

Abbott expressed this view in September. He believes at least four seats in NSW - Lindsay, Robertson, Greenway and Banks - would have come his way had they been handled better. As this paper reported last week, the Liberals' own post-election review, which Abbott commissioned from former federal minister Peter Reith, is expected to support the Abbott viewpoint.

Unsurprisingly, the review has been shelved until after the March 26 state election so as not to cause a repeat of the stoush between Abbott and NSW divisional officials that erupted when Abbott first made the claims, and which sorely strained his relationship with Barry O'Farrell.

With O'Farrell all but certain to win on March 26, NSW Liberals are already warning that a premier beats a federal opposition leader and, therefore, the division will not be pushed around.

If you ignore the recommendation in the ALP review, which suggests giving unions a 20 per cent say in preselections, overall, the ALP elders have made proposals that will empower the increasingly disenfranchised rank and file.

Conversely, the Reith review, sources say, will propose a centralisation of power in the Liberal Party so the ''feds'' can step in when they deem fit.

They would be able, for example, to intervene or parachute a candidate into a federal seat if the federal leader was unhappy with who had been chosen or if the process was taking too long.

Rather than vest such powers in the large, unwieldy and hard-to-control Liberal federal executive, there is a suggestion of trying again to establish an administration committee, a scaled-back version of the executive that would comprise party elders with a federal perspective, such as David Kemp.

Several states, including NSW, blocked moves to establish the committee last year.

Abbott has already given notice that he wants change. After the election, he demanded that the NSW divisional president, Natasha Maclaren-Jones, move aside for the universally regarded Arthur Sinodinos, John Howard's former chief of staff.

There was fierce resistance to what locals perceived as bullying and an unfair attempt to sheet all the blame for the Liberal performance in NSW to the state division.

Maclaren-Jones, they told Abbott, would enter the state upper house after the election and, keen to avoid a fight before then, O'Farrell and others urged Abbott to wait, with the guarantee Sinodinos would get the job.

Abbott refused. Eventually, after a heated meeting in his office late last year, O'Farrell killed the push by calling a press conference and supporting Maclaren-Jones.

NSW Liberals numbers men are now refusing to guarantee Sinodinos the position even after Maclaren-Jones leaves, such is the ill-feeling that was generated. ''It has now become an issue,'' an official said.

The NSW division has always resented being told what to do. There was no better example than when it defied Howard in an election year, 2007, when he demanded the controversial preselection in Cook be overturned. Howard got his way, but it involved an extremely damaging three-month battle.

Those who opposed Howard spoke pejoratively of ''the firm'', the term used for the network he had established over the years to keep a hand in the workings of the division and to look after the interests of the federal parliamentary party.

Abbott, too, say people close to him, wants to establish a firm, but he will meet resistance. Said the official: ''It's different when you've got a premier.''

38 comments

Sand-bagging - making ridiculous unfunded promises that will never be delivered, and telling lies about your opponents.

Commenter

bitrich

Date and time

February 21, 2011, 7:31AM

why would they bother listening to Abbott anyway? with his embarrassing attitute to climate change (he is a denier but his party thankfully isn't) and negative attititue to just about everything, it is a joke that he stands as opposition leader ..bring back malcolm turnbull so as to avoid Australia becoming the laughing stock of the world.

Commenter

john

Date and time

February 21, 2011, 7:48AM

Again, what has this to do with Barry's team's capacity to run the state as governmnet after March and Tony's teams capacity to be an effective opposition? Tired and lazy journalism as highlighted by former premiers on the weekend doing nothing but filling a 24 hours news cycle.

Commenter

Bernie

Location

Hunter Valley

Date and time

February 21, 2011, 7:54AM

Abbott is a little Hollow Man. He does what the One Liberal Nation hate radio jerks tell him to do. Any time he's in trouble (which is practically daily) he goes straight to them, and they feed him his lines. He can't think for himself or even speak for himself. Witness his 82 seconds of mute head-nodding fury when asked a perfectly reasonable question by a Channel 7 reporter. Abbott is a dud, and people are waking up at last.

Commenter

Douglas

Date and time

February 21, 2011, 8:29AM

And they say Labor has problems in NSW.

Commenter

Hillbilly Skeleton

Location

NSW

Date and time

February 21, 2011, 8:37AM

Abbott can't even negotiate with his own party to get an outcome, he would be hopeless as PM trying to bulldooze his way.

The other issue is what does he stand for, other than slogans and negativity, we need more than this, bring back Turnbull, at least he has a strategic brain and supports good ideas regardless of their origin.

Abbott reminds me of someone who's been promoted to a role beyond their competence

Commenter

Steve

Location

Wagga

Date and time

February 21, 2011, 8:47AM

Just shows that which ever way we vote in NSW, we are going to get a dud.

Commenter

Steve

Date and time

February 21, 2011, 8:51AM

Abbott,with his bully boy tactics has so many within his own party disenchanted with his crude behaviour.His performance last week just confirmed that he just doesnt have the intellectual capacity to be the leader of his own party let alone being PM.Could you imagine Abbott as PM ?Each morning calling to get his riding instructions from that pair of spiteful Liberal mouthpieces, Jones & Hadley......

Commenter

the contented lad

Location

out on the harbour

Date and time

February 21, 2011, 9:02AM

NSW Libs had a choice, go for a guaranteed win in NSWor put the money and resources behind Abbott.

They went with the smart bet and backed themselves.

All political parties need to give more power to their members

Commenter

Al

Date and time

February 21, 2011, 9:04AM

This does seem to be rather a rose-coloured view of ALP party machinations. Does Coorey believe what he has written, or is he deliberately being one-sided and provocative to stir up comment - a sort or print shock-jock?

At a state level, I wonder if Keneally discussed with the rank and file before proroguing parliament to prevent scrutiny of her electricity sale. But of course she wouldn't be premier if the factions (not the grass roots) had not put her there in a trail that started when unions, led by John Robertson, brought down Iemma over electricity privatisation.

At a federal level, was Gillard an unwilling draftee of the factions or an active participant in the demise of Rudd? Who would the grass roots have as PM? And how did the grass roots feel when Rudd, reportedly acting on advice from Gillard and Swan, killed the ETS and his career in the process.

And what about all the posturing by Gillard and Rudd before her about having the power to make various appointments. Is that like where Rees insisted on selecting his ministry...except Bitar had to approve it?

Finally "If you ignore....giving unions a 20% say in preselections..." is like saying "If you ignore farts things smell great." The links between the ALP and the unions are a problem. Again, who had more influence over the removal of Rudd, the average backbencher or Paul Howes?

Personally, I think the examples I have cited are worse than those Coorey cites, but everyone is free to form their opinion.